Yoga teacher training online allows yoga teachers to complete different yoga certification courses on their own schedule and at their own pace. While online classes are not designed to replace the importance of traditional classes, online training can serve as non-contact hours for different certification programs including the Yoga Alliance certification and the American Council on Exercise Certification.

Benefits

Online yoga training programs offer students the flexibility to tailor the pace of their learning to fit their own schedules. In addition, it eliminates the need to travel to other cities to attend intensive yoga training programs.

Certification

Online certifications qualify candidates for professional liability insurance. In addition, the certifications teach future instructors the foundations of yoga and different teaching techniques that they will use in future. Some of the subjects covered by online yoga programs include history of yoga, introduction to anatomy, business of yoga, chakras, yoga sutras, adjusting and contraindications as well as teaching tips.

200-hour training

This is the first certification level. This type of training includes 100 hours of techniques, training and practice. Some of the subjects covered by this program include yoga philosophy, lifestyle and ethics, anatomy, and physiology as well as teaching methodology. Many online yoga-training sites provide this training.

500-Hour training

The 500-hour certification program covers all the subjects offered by the 200-hour yoga-training program. The main difference between the two is that the former takes 500 hours to complete while the latter takes 200 to complete.

Prenatal Yoga Teaching

Prenatal yoga certification is for certified instructors who want to specialize in teaching pregnant women. Some of the subjects covered in this program include general background, yoga philosophy, practicum, anatomy and physiology, teaching methodology as well as techniques, training, and practice.

Children’s Yoga

Doing yoga has many benefits. It helps to improve physical health, strength, flexibility, and body awareness. The benefits of teaching yoga to children are more widely spread. It improves their physical health, imagination, discipline, and self-esteem. However, teaching children comes with its own share of challenges. The greatest challenge is keeping the attention of the children. Children become easily distracted and tend to wander off in their thoughts. This means that you have to use different strategies to keep the children involved during sessions.

Many yoga-training options are available for aspiring instructors. You can obtain certification by enrolling for a yoga course in a traditional class or in a hut in Bali. Most training institutions offer 200-hour and 500-hour certification programs.

Some yoga training courses are residential, which require candidates to live in their respective centers for a month while others only require weekend classes, which mean that students attend classes only during weekends. Both options require future instructors to attend classes, which mean that they have to consider cost of travel and location when choosing their yoga training programs.

Yoga teacher training online allows you to obtain different levels of yoga certifications at your own pace and schedule. This means that you do not need to consider location and travel costs when applying for online yoga certification courses.

When most people hear about yoga, the idea that comes to mind is that of a person seated on a mat, legs crossed, and hands outstretched. However, living a yoga lifestyle is so much more than that. Yoga is much more than the poses, exercises, or workouts. Living the yoga lifestyle requires a deeper understanding of the way one’s body operates, thereby engaging with it at a much deeper level.

In the words of one yoga master, living a yoga lifestyle entails living a life of a pure mind and body and using that to reflect light to the other people who need it. The first part of doing that is by following the five rules of social conduct that are listed below.

Ahimsa

Ahimsa is the first yoga principle that a person seeking this lifestyle should adhere to. It means non-violence and it applies to every part of the human life. Mainly it addresses how we treat our bodies and minds, other beings, how we think, what we think and talk about, how and what we eat.

Satya

Satya is the second key principle of yoga and it entails being truthful. This offers some sort of guidance in cases where there is conflict between telling the truth and being hurtful. This scenario often plays out when telling the truth may lead to harm and pain. In this case, the principle holds that one should always tell the truth but do it diplomatically. Truth should not be used to hurt others.

Asteya

The simple meaning of the Asteya principle is not to steal. What it literally means is that one should only take what they need and leave the rest for others. In this age of capitalism and self-promotion, this principle could be very helpful. Today, people will not mind having as much as they can get regardless of how challenging life is for others. A person living a yoga lifestyle understands that they should only take what they need.

Brahmacharya

This term means faithfulness. It is the principle that faithfulness in your relationships with all the people that surround you. Being faithful means committing to do what is right without betraying them in any way. It is being accountable to those you relate to. In this case, one can be trusted to keep promises, principles, and commitments.

Aparigraha

This fourth principle stands for non-greed. It is closely related to Asteya since it relates to taking things unfairly. It means that one should live fairly by using only what he or she requires. As such, someone who desires to live the yoga lifestyle today ought to practice a life of simplicity and avoid extravagance.

As you may have seen in all these scenarios, transforming your current lifestyle into a yoga one largely starts from inside. While there is a tendency in almost all people to want to change others, a yoga transformation changes the outside by starting from the inside. When this happens, it becomes easier to relate to the external environment, including where people are involved.

Yoga Nidra (Sanskrit for “dream yoga”) is a powerful technique of the Yoga Tantra tradition.

It is both a state of mind and a practice which creates an altered state of consciousness. Yoga Nidra enables us to relax and heals our being, to expand our ability to imagine, entering into the realm of the subconscious and the superconscious. It feels like your life magically changes, and it helps you reach a state which some call “enlightenment.”

Yoga Nidra, although tantric at birth, can be classified as part of the Eight Limbs of Yoga of the Raja Yoga system (a well-known coding system of the Yogic practices of Patanjali). In fact, at least three of the Eight Limbs of Yoga can be found in this practice:

Pranayama: Control of Prana, the vital energy force, through breathing exercises.

Pratyahara: Gaining mastery over external influences. It is the art of senses withdrawal from influences of the mind that do not serve us in the path of enlightenment and/or liberation.

Introduction to Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra originated in India and comes from a very ancient relaxation technique known as Nyasa, which was a powerful tantric practice to achieve deep relaxation. When Nyasa was adapted by Swami Satyananda, who simplified the method while preserving its essence to help common people to understand it, Yoga Nidra was born.

This technique allows us to relax in a conscious way where the mind remains in the threshold between the dream world and consciousness. As we enter the state of relaxation, the external stimuli get blurry and disappear, and our consciousness starts fading. It is in this horizon where we can get our mind to perform at its max.

Note that when we are learning to master this technique, we usually fall asleep. External stimuli will then wake us up (In my case, I was shaken by another Yoga Nidra student who had been disturbed by my snoring!)

With practice, our mind learns to stabilize at the level of “Nidra,” to the level of “conscious sleep.” This is a level where the mind is very receptive and allows us to connect with very deep spaces of the psyche, visualizing our problems, fears, and conflicts in order to face and clean them, and find mindful solutions.

How to Practice Yoga Nidra

First, learn with the guidance of an experienced teacher, or by following a recording. Once you have mastered the technique, you can practice by yourself.

Practice in a room with pleasant temperature, well ventilated but without air drafts, and in dim light.

Get super comfy when practicing Yoga Nidra. You don’t want to lose your concentration because your clothes are too tight, you got itchy, or you are cold. For this reason, clothes should be comfortable without elastics, or folds, and it is recommended to lay on your back on a mat in Savasana, covered by a blanket.

If you notice that the lumbar area does not rest on the mat, you can place a cushion or a folded blanket under the knees to create support only if, when relaxing, these areas do not become heavy and produce pain or discomfort.

It is not advisable to practice Yoga Nidra for people who have had epilepsy episodes, or those who have had psychotic outbreaks.

When reaching the state of deep relaxation, we might submerge ourselves in old traumas that have not been resolved and could cause restlessness and loss of control. In this case, it is advisable to re-establish calmness and try to “observe” the situation as a spectator. Basically, being aware that you are not living it. This is called, “witness consciousness”. In order to get out of the situation of anguish, it is enough to become aware of your body’s weight on the mat, to perceive a sound from outside and, thus, temporarily suspend the practice until it can be resumed later.

There are no immediate results with Yoga Nidra, so don’t feel bad if you fall asleep. In this case, as with all the Yoga techniques, practice makes perfect. Little by little and with consistency, we can master the Nidra state and achieve the balance we need in our lives.